


Half-life

by viceroyvonmutini



Series: LadiesofPOI-Kara Stanton (B) [5]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4107259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceroyvonmutini/pseuds/viceroyvonmutini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>3 out of 9 wasn't bad but not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half-life

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: End
> 
> I swear I can do serious. I swear it.

Kara Stanton didn’t think she would end.

She wasn’t stupid enough to believe she would live forever, but the universe had killed her more times than most and that had to mean something.

Kara had a knack for being reborn.

The first time she died she'd been recruited into a special ops branch of the CIA: ISA. No ties. No family. Loyalty to the cause. If she were anyone else she might have questioned how easily she accepted this turn of events but as she was, she swore fealty as easily as one might buy milk.

It was almost surreal watching herself die: watching as each remaining family member came to the realization that Kara was gone: Kara was gone and she was never coming back and slowly she faded like a forgotten dream just as much as she forgot about them.

The first time Kara watched-even attended her own funeral, watching broodily from a distance and she swore to herself she was going to save the world from that grave and no one would ever know-and she watched herself disappear. There but not quite there. Kara Stanton was alive; Kara was dead. Kara Stanton had an apartment, paid bills, went for runs on crisp December mornings, had a job. Kara Stanton had a life. But she was dead.

The first lesson Kara learnt: attachments are meaningless.

She watched new recruits go through the same process she had: watched as they watched themselves fade out of existence. Some took it well, leaving behind all they had known much like she had accepting the duty whilst others could never stop looking back: wandering through old haunts, finding themselves in bars they once frequented. Never quite letting go.

Those kids usually ended up dead or out of the program. Which meant dead. There was no difference.

You can’t repeat the past.

Physical rebirth was impossible: Kara was not pulled from the literal ashes of her old self but some days it felt like it. Kara was born from fire: that is how she saw herself. There was nothing she couldn’t do, would not destroy to reach her goals. Kara lived for her country: loyal to a fault because she would stay alive if it was the last thing she did.

This was her second life, and she would live it better than the first.

The second time she died there was fire.

Hurt like a motherfucker too.

She awoke in a hospital bed and everything ached. She felt raw and by the feel of rough bandage on charred, sensitive skin she might have been quite literally raw: being blown up will do that to you.

But she was alive.

Possibly kidnapped, but alive.

The old man spoke of revenge-she liked that talk-and spoke of her recovery; in return she would do something for him. Her new life would not be much different from her old it would seem.

The second lesson Kara learnt: rebirth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

When she thought of second chances she thought of redemption. She wasn’t much keen on the idea of changing her ways-she liked her job too much-but sometimes late at night when the stars were out and she was alone she might think of a new life. A new life where she experienced some great wonder: incentive to change that she so desperately wanted but wouldn’t ever search for. And maybe she’d wake up and have a normal life, doing good for the right people: that naïve belief she used to have before life caught up with her.

Good was so abstract.

She didn’t like to think about it much.

This was not the rebirth she had hoped for.

Her third life and she was weary.

The third time she died, she actually died.

There was almost something poetic about her impending doom, and the thought flickered through her mind briefly as she caught the eye of Snow sitting in the backseat of her car.

All that work, all that killing for just a scrap of paper and ultimately it was…nothing, ended by a bitter man who probably saw the irony in his own actions better than she did.

The third lesson Kara learnt: sometimes it was time to die.

She had so much more to do, so much anger burning in her chest for a man she didn’t even know all for one stupid laptop but she was not afraid of death. This world was too complex for her even she could see that. She was a pawn with too much power just as Snow was, she could see that now.

Didn’t mean she wanted to die, particularly not by what was technically her own hand.

The end was a blaze of glory. The theatrical part of her would have liked that and she thought it was somewhat fitting: a body so burned it was unrecognizable. That had always been their intent: erase her existence. From memory first but soon from life too.

Trouble was she still had so much more to do, just like everyone else.

Kara never thought she would be immortal but she might have liked a few more lives than this.


End file.
